Pain? No problem! AI has been taught to recognise the suffering of goats by their facial expressions

While he was being treated for a common problem among these animals, he was also involved in a new study that aims to teach artificial intelligence (AI) to recognise pain in pets from their faces. And perhaps one day it could help humans too.

If we solve this problem with animals, we can also solve it for children and other non-verbal patients," said Ludovica Chiavaccini, assistant professor of anaesthesiology at the University of Florida.

Chiavaccini and her colleagues videotaped the faces of goats in pain and those in comfort. They then uploaded this data into an AI model that learnt to distinguish between goats in pain just by their facial expressions.

The study was published on 7 November in the journal Scientific Reports.

The system, trained and tested on 40 goats, was able to identify animals in pain with 62% to 80% accuracy, depending on the testing methods. With the accumulation of data on more goats and other animal species, such AI models could help veterinarians effectively treat pain in patients who can't be spoken to.

It's not just a matter of animal welfare," Chiavaccini notes. - We also know that animals in pain have poorer weight gain and are less productive. Farmers are becoming increasingly aware of the need to monitor acute and chronic pain in animals.

Implementing AI pain scales in veterinary clinics will require further research, but may help solve a long-standing problem in animal care. Pain assessment in animals has historically been complex and subjective. Typically, veterinarians have relied on years of experience to make decisions.

Scientists have developed standardised pain scales for different animal species in recent years to reduce subjectivity, but the quality of these methods varies widely.

When Chiavaccini's team began their research - inspired by a graduate student's love of goats - there was no pain scale for these animals at all. Today, the only pain scale for goats exists, but it's only validated for males after castration, emphasising the need for a more universal system.

So, if you thought goats just always looked a little unhappy, AI will now be able to tell you exactly when they're actually in pain.

Perhaps soon vets will be asking: What does AI say about our goat today?

Source: Ludovica Chiavaccini et al, "Automated acute pain prediction in domestic goats using deep learning-based models on video-recordings", Scientific Reports (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-78494-0